Bryan Bruce’s boy’s own memories of pre-neoliberal #NewZealand @Child_PovertyNZ

You really are still fighting the 1990 New Zealand general election if Max Rashbrooke makes more sense than you on the good old days before the virus of neoliberalism beset New Zealand from 1984 onwards.

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Source: Mind the Gap: Why most of us are poor | Stuff.co.nz.

Bryan Bruce in the caption looks upon the New Zealand of the 1960s and 70s as “broadly egalitarian”. Even Max Rashbrooke had to admit that was not so if you were Maori or female.

Maybe 65% of the population of those good old days before the virus of neoliberalism. were missing out on that broadly egalitarian society championed by Bryan Bruce.

As is typical for the embittered left, the reactionary left, gender analysis and the sociology of race is not for their memories of their good old days. New Zealand has the smallest gender wage gap of any of the industrialised countries.

The 20 years of wage stagnation that proceeded the passage of the Employment Contracts Act and the wages boom also goes down the reactionary left memory hole.

That wage stagnation in New Zealand  in the 1970s and early 80s coincided with a decline in the incomes of the top 10%. When their income share started growing again, so did the wages of everybody after 20 years of stagnation. The top 10% in New Zealand managed to restore their income share of the early 1970s and indeed the 1960s. That it is hardly the rich getting richer.

I hope no one in @OxfamGB’s #taxhaven clip were fresh from a #TPPANoWay march?

I hope none in this clip protesting against tax havens as short changing everybody else were fresh from protesting how international economic agreements such as the TPPA infringe on the sovereignty of countries.

If you standing up for national sovereignty that includes standing up for the right of other countries doing things that you do not like within their own country.

If countries have the right to set taxes and tariffs as high as they like, they have just the same right to set them as low as they like.

All that plucky rhetoric of TPPA no way and how international economic agreements violate the sovereignty of countries and developing countries in particular is forgotten in a flash by Oxfam.

Oxfam manages the blinding hypocrisy of opposing the Transpacific Partnership on national sovereignty grounds and at the same time call for international treaties to bully small countries about their tax policies, which overrides their economic sovereignty.

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The sovereign rights of developing countries to find their own way does not extend to undermining the tax bases of the rich countries struggling to finance their welfare states.

The Pacific Islands, the once were heroes of the recent Paris climate talks, turn into pariahs once they start looking out for themselves and setting up offshore financial centres and tax havens.

Developing countries are free to impoverish themselves by embracing socialism, but if they decide to attract investment and jobs through low tax rates and offshore financial centres, a new form of colonialism is embraced by the reactionary left as embodied by Oxfam.

How to fight corruption

Straight talking from @BernieSanders on #sugartaxes @JordNZ

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Source: Bernie Sanders Op-Ed: A Soda Tax Would Hurt Philly’s Poor.

why the world isn’t even more corrupt than what we observe

Why tertiary education is ‘out of reach for many’

The majority of New Zealanders do not qualify for university. Perhaps Labour and the Greens should spend more time worrying about those who do not achieve university entrance standard.

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Source: School leavers with NCEA level 3 or above | Education Counts.

Anyone who achieve university entrance standard is among the intellectual elite. They have a head start in life. Labour and the Greens are preoccupied with giving those with a head start in life more freebies.

Americans used to be much more trusting of government

@JordNZ best way to talk yourself out of #UBI is listen to advocate list new taxes required

Directors’ Law vindicated again – the American middle class think there are undervalued

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And people vote for @BernieSanders because he is honest

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Source: The Sanders campaign is living in an economic fantasy world.

https://twitter.com/JHWeissmann/status/700427050201542656

% social benefits in cash by income quintile, G7, Nordics, Australia and New Zealand

Some welfare states are much more targeted. Australia has the most targeted welfare state in terms of public social benefits paid in cash to the bottom quintile (Q1) of income earners.

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Source: OECD Income Distribution database.

@paulkrugman on @BernieSanders Achilles heel

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@ChrisHipkins @jacindaardern New Zealand graduate premium @dbseymour

How conceited students are to complain about a $20,000 student loan when they got $1/2 million coming down the pipe.

Source: A Degree is a smart investment | Universities New Zealand – Te Pōkai Tara.

Self-appointed social justice warriors in the New Zealand Labour Party and New Zealand Greens pander to this middle class greed. They should be ashamed of themselves.

26% of eligible students do not take out a student loan so they would really get a leg up from the abolition of tuition fees.

The median repayment time for those who left study in 2011 and remained in New Zealand was 5.8 years.

Here’s where Republicans and Democrats differ on the role of government

A bizarre Finnish amateur racing car practice for redistributing winning

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